This is an excerpt from a much longer story I wrote a while back. It’s supposed to be funny so you can laugh. (:

…Speaking of trying to learn something new… That year I re-learned how to drop in to a ramp on a skateboard. I started on the smallest ramp which was only a roll-in. Meaning you didn’t necessarily need to actually “drop in” to go down it, you just rolled up to it. I mastered those and moved on to a small, two-foot-tall drop in ramp. I was extremely scared to try to go down because I knew I’d fall. I had a counselor there though, Sam, who helped me get through it and encouraged me to try it. With his help I made it down that ramp and another, foot taller one. I got confident enough in my skills that I decided I wanted to try to drop in to the half pipe. I thought it would be as easy as the other ramps turned out to be, but I ended up standing at the top for about twenty minutes.

The only thing that got me down from there without being a wimp was another counselor, Ricker, who offered me free pizza if I went down the ramp in the next five seconds. So I stood up there, contemplating whether free pizza was really worth the pain I was expecting, all the while Ricker was counting down from five. When he got to one, I threw myself down the ramp and actually didn’t fall. I made it down, unscathed. I was so proud of myself. Now where was my pizza?

The next day when I came back, I practiced the other ramps for a while until Sam decided that I should go on the next highest ramp. The ramp was a three set, meaning that it was composed of three ramps in one. The ramp in the middle was a roll in and was only maybe four feet tall; nothing. The two ramps on either side of that ramp though, were six feet tall. From the ground, that looked like an easy task. Until I climbed up there. I ended up standing at the top for longer than I had on any other ramp; I was scared out of my mind. Sam was there the entire time encouraging me and telling me I could do it so I finally took his word for it and went for the gold.

I got the pavement. I had leaned too far to one side, which is exactly what you want to avoid when you’re dropping in so I slammed down on my hip and skidded across the concrete. All I could do at first was just lie there and try not to cry in front of all the guys. Sam came rushing over, along with the head of Extreme Sports, Scott and other counselors James and Andrew. I had a huge crush on Andrew so I didn’t want him thinking I was just like all the other girls so I sat up. My hip hurt so badly. They all asked me if I was okay and if I could walk so I tried to get up. As soon as I stood, a bolt of pain went down my leg but I ignored it. I “walked it off” as they put it and went back to skating.

I decided I didn’t want to go anywhere near that ramp again for the rest of my time at camp so I went back to what I already knew; the half pipe. I wanted to learn a new trick, the rock to fakie. To do this, you have to drop in to the half pipe, ride up the other side, let the trucks of the skateboard go up over the coping of the ramp, and then let them come back off the coping and ride back down. I’d always get to about halfway through, and my trucks would get stuck on the coping and I’d fall. On the same hip I’d just mangled. Once I had had enough pain for the day and it was time to go back to the bunk, I decided to see how bad the damage was on my hip.

I really wish I hadn’t looked.

There was an enormous scrape all along my hip and part of my leg, along with a nice massive purple and blue bruise to accompany it. I poked it to see if it hurt as bad as it looked. I shouldn’t have. As soon as I even lightly grazed the bruise or scrape, my vision blurred because of how bad the pain was. There was nothing I could do about it though, but let it heal on its own.

And heal it did, but not correctly. I bruised the bone, which I didn’t even know was possible until then. From falling so many times on the same spot, and scraping off most of the skin in that area, I no longer could feel anything on the top of the skin, but the bone itself never stopped hurting. There were good days and bad days with it; sometimes it didn’t hurt at all and some days I couldn’t walk. I got used to it.

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